War Funding Vote
The U.S. House is scheduled to vote later today on a bill that provides about $96 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through September and also sets a goal of withdrawing most U.S. troops from Iraq by late March 2008.
All five of the House members from Oklahoma are planning to vote against it.
Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Oklahoma City, took to the House floor early today to blast Democratic leaders for pushing a bill that President Bush has vowed repeatedly to veto.
“Congress must immediately send our troops the resources they need to win this war, without strings attached and without delay,” Fallin said. “But instead, the Democrat leadership is proposing to tie the hands of our troops and hamstring our generals with a misguided plan to micromanage the war effort. This is unacceptable.”
Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, has voiced misgivings about the war, and he opposed Bush’s plan to add more troops this year to help secure the most dangerous parts of Iraq, but he opposes the timelines in the bill.
Nick Choate, Boren’s press secretary, said, “The bill still imposes a timeline telling commanders when they have to start sending troops home, and he has said from the start that he will not support a bill that includes a timeline.”
The vote is expected to be close in the House and Senate. Even if the spending bill clears both houses, it’s not going to become law. Whether the next version will be something Oklahoma lawmakers _ and the president _ can support remains to be seen.
The bill also includes money for construction at Fort Sill and other military bases that are gaining work because of the 2005 base closing commission. And it includes $3.5 billion in agriculture disaster relief, some of which would go to Oklahoma producers hit by drought and other disasters.
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
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